Background

Notes and format last updated May 7, 2020

Starting on the May 7th update, the NY Times began including probable covid cases/deaths along with confirmed. This mostly affects death counts – for certain geographies that include probable COVID deaths in addition to confirmed, these are now added to the totals. For the time being, they were all added to the May 6th totals, causing a big spike at the U.S. level. Over time, NY Times will revise their historical counts and distribute these added deaths when they actually occurred, so the spike should fade.

Growth rates

Heat maps

  • The two heat maps below compare how quickly total cases or deaths have grown at various times in our respective geopgraphies.
  • The first plot compares growth rate for total cases; the second, growth rate for total deaths.
  • The metric used is doubling time, by which I mean how quickly total cases or deaths are doubling.
  • The plots track that doubling time at each date for our geographies. Darker colors reflect shorter doubling times, and thus periods of faster growth.
    • You can use the plots to track each geography over time and to compare the geographies to one another.
    • You can also compare the cases and death charts, to see how faster periods of death growth follow faster periods of case growth.

Case growth rates

  • This section charts the growth rate of both total and new cases for each of our respective geographies. Each geography has its own chart, and then that chart will have a trendline for total cases and new cases.
    • There are only plots for the U.S. and states because the numbers for the counties are too small to generate worthwhile trendlines in this section.
  • Note that we’re charting growth rate and not a count of cases, so don’t think of these as the standard “curve” that we hear about in the news and that we want to flatten. Instead, these growth rate charts help track more precisely what we can only estimate when we see those other curves. For these growth rate charts, if the line is above zero, the metric we are tracking (total or new cases) is continuing to grow. If the growth rate line is going up, it’s growing more quickly each day; if it’s going down but still above zero, it’s growing less quickly (but still growing). Only when the growth rate lines go below zero has the metric stopped growing.
  • Each of these two lines uses rolling windows to calculate a growth rate for that particular metric. I do the calculation differently for each to smooth out some of the large day-to-day discrepancies in new case reporting at the state level.
    • For total cases, the trendlines are a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rates in total cases. We want to see these decline (and almost all are), but they can’t go below zero. This is because we’re tracking growth rate and a growth rate line below zero would mean total cases have gone down, which can’t happen. They can only grow less quickly, which means we want to see the total case line get as close to zero as possible.
    • For new cases, the trendlines show a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rate in the rolling 7-day average of new cases. Including two rolling periods in this average helps smooth out crazy spikes at the state level that result from large day-to-day changes. Unlike the lines for total cases, we want to watch for the lines for new cases to get consistently below zero and stay there. That means that we are consistently seeing fewer new cases on a daily basis.

U.S.

Our states

Death growth rates

  • This section charts the growth rate of both total and new deaths for each of our respective geographies. Each geography has its own chart, and then that chart will have a trendline for total deaths and new deaths.
    • There are only plots for the U.S. and states because the numbers for the counties are too small to generate worthwhile trendlines in this section.
  • Note that we’re charting growth rate and not a count of deaths, so don’t think of these as the standard “curve” that we hear about in the news and that we want to flatten. Instead, these growth rate charts help track more precisely what we can only estimate when we see those other curves. For these growth rate charts, if the line is above zero, the metric we are tracking (total or new deaths) is continuing to grow. If the growth rate line is going up, it’s growing more quickly each day; if it’s going down but still above zero, it’s growing less quickly (but still growing). Only when the growth rate lines go below zero has the metric stopped growing.
  • Each of these two lines uses rolling windows to calculate a growth rate for that particular metric. I do the calculation differently for each to smooth out some of the large day-to-day discrepancies in new death reporting at the state level.
    • For total deaths, the trendlines are a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rates in total deaths. We want to see these decline (and almost all are), but they can’t go below zero. This is because we’re tracking growth rate and a growth rate line below zero would mean total deaths have gone down, which can’t happen. They can only grow less quickly, which means we want to see the total death line get as close to zero as possible.
    • For new deaths, the trendlines show a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rate in the rolling 7-day average of new deaths. Including two rolling periods in this average helps smooth out crazy spikes at the state level that result from large day-to-day changes. Unlike the lines for total deaths, we want to watch for the lines for new deaths to get consistently below zero and stay there. That means that we are consistently seeing fewer new deaths on a daily basis.

U.S.

Our states

By population rankings

This section tracks metrics for states and counties normalized for population (number of cases or deaths per million residents), and then compares these figures both for our geographies and the country overall.

States

  • This section shows tables ranking all 50 states for per populations rates of total cases, new cases, total deaths, and new deaths.
  • For each metric, in addition to the tables, the trends for the top states are plotted over time.
    • We only plot the top ten states for each metric so that the plots aren’t too crowded. But you can view the full 50-state rankings in the tables.

Total confirmed cases

Table of total confirmed cases per million residents (all 50 states)
Ranking State Cases Per Million
1 North Dakota 115,571
2 South Dakota 103,264
3 Iowa 81,425
4 Wisconsin 80,942
5 Nebraska 77,346
6 Utah 73,573
7 Rhode Island 69,920
8 Wyoming 68,724
9 Idaho 68,648
10 Montana 68,635
11 Minnesota 67,717
12 Illinois 67,698
13 Kansas 66,284
14 Tennessee 66,256
15 Indiana 64,353
16 Arkansas 61,984
17 Nevada 61,621
18 Mississippi 60,848
19 Alabama 60,755
20 Oklahoma 60,593
21 Missouri 59,880
22 Louisiana 58,002
23 New Mexico 57,848
24 Arizona 57,765
25 Alaska 56,541
26 Florida 52,816
27 Texas 51,519
28 Kentucky 51,182
29 Colorado 50,643
30 Georgia 49,650
31 South Carolina 49,483
32 Ohio 48,814
33 Delaware 47,708
34 Michigan 47,278
35 New Jersey 45,857
36 Connecticut 43,192
37 Massachusetts 42,688
38 North Carolina 42,116
39 California 41,021
40 New York 40,600
41 Pennsylvania 39,479
42 Maryland 39,237
43 West Virginia 35,931
44 District of Columbia 35,477
45 Virginia 33,407
46 Puerto Rico 30,247
47 Washington 27,885
48 New Hampshire 23,442
49 Oregon 22,533
50 Hawaii 13,764
51 Maine 12,162
52 Vermont 9,386

New confirmed cases

Table of new cases per million residents: rolling 3-day average (all 50 states)
Ranking State New Cases Per Million
1 Tennessee 1,294
2 Rhode Island 1,023
3 Arizona 1,021
4 Indiana 905
5 Delaware 903
6 Oklahoma 877
7 Nevada 853
8 Ohio 809
9 Utah 803
10 California 781
11 Pennsylvania 770
12 New Mexico 752
13 Alaska 724
14 West Virginia 698
15 Connecticut 676
16 Missouri 671
17 Massachusetts 667
18 Mississippi 651
19 Minnesota 642
20 South Dakota 633
21 Alabama 620
22 South Carolina 618
23 Illinois 610
24 Arkansas 600
25 New Hampshire 592
26 Kentucky 579
27 New Jersey 570
28 Wyoming 570
29 Wisconsin 567
30 North Carolina 531
31 Kansas 514
32 New York 514
33 Idaho 512
34 Colorado 467
35 Maryland 464
36 Georgia 453
37 Nebraska 445
38 Montana 444
39 Florida 434
40 Virginia 418
41 Michigan 412
42 Louisiana 390
43 North Dakota 373
44 Texas 366
45 Iowa 347
46 Washington 343
47 District of Columbia 321
48 Oregon 285
49 Maine 283
50 Puerto Rico 206
51 Vermont 168
52 Hawaii 108

Total deaths

Table of total deaths per million residents (all 50 states)
Ranking State Deaths Per Million
1 New Jersey 2,001
2 New York 1,813
3 Massachusetts 1,652
4 Connecticut 1,526
5 North Dakota 1,526
6 Louisiana 1,472
7 Rhode Island 1,467
8 South Dakota 1,423
9 Mississippi 1,412
10 Illinois 1,219
11 Michigan 1,129
12 Iowa 1,036
13 Indiana 1,016
14 District of Columbia 1,014
15 Arizona 1,010
16 Arkansas 990
17 Pennsylvania 989
18 New Mexico 943
19 Florida 931
20 Georgia 923
21 South Carolina 922
22 Maryland 850
23 Texas 847
24 Delaware 837
25 Alabama 836
26 Nevada 830
27 Tennessee 803
28 Minnesota 801
29 Missouri 779
30 Montana 765
31 Wisconsin 748
32 Nebraska 740
33 Kansas 723
34 Colorado 697
35 Idaho 670
36 Ohio 645
37 North Carolina 562
38 Wyoming 554
39 Kentucky 553
40 West Virginia 545
41 California 536
42 Oklahoma 523
43 Virginia 517
44 New Hampshire 444
45 Washington 404
46 Puerto Rico 401
47 Utah 332
48 Oregon 276
49 Alaska 231
50 Hawaii 192
51 Maine 192
52 Vermont 153

New deaths

Table of new deaths per million residents: rolling 3-day average (all 50 states)
Ranking State New Deaths Per Million
1 South Dakota 18
2 New Mexico 14
3 Rhode Island 14
4 Arkansas 12
5 Nebraska 11
6 North Dakota 11
7 Illinois 10
8 Michigan 10
9 Minnesota 10
10 Tennessee 10
11 Colorado 9
12 Pennsylvania 9
13 Alaska 8
14 Indiana 8
15 Iowa 8
16 Mississippi 8
17 Connecticut 7
18 Nevada 7
19 West Virginia 7
20 Massachusetts 6
21 Idaho 5
22 Louisiana 5
23 New York 5
24 Oklahoma 5
25 South Carolina 5
26 Arizona 4
27 Florida 4
28 Kansas 4
29 Kentucky 4
30 Maryland 4
31 Missouri 4
32 Montana 4
33 New Jersey 4
34 Texas 4
35 Wisconsin 4
36 Delaware 3
37 District of Columbia 3
38 New Hampshire 3
39 North Carolina 3
40 Ohio 3
41 Puerto Rico 3
42 Utah 3
43 California 2
44 Georgia 2
45 Maine 2
46 Alabama 1
47 Hawaii 1
48 Oregon 1
49 Vermont 1
50 Virginia 1
51 Washington 0
52 Wyoming 0

Counties

  • This section focuses on the county level. It shows tables with our counties ranked by percentile of U.S. counties for per population rates of total cases and total deaths.
    • Each table also shows the top five counties in the country in addition to our counties, for added perspecive.
  • In addition to the tables, our counties’ percentile for both total cases and total deaths are plotted over time.

Confirmed cases

Table showing total cases per million and percentile for all US counties. Includes our counties and the top 5 in the US for perspective.
County State Cases Per Million Raw Ranking Percentile
Crowley Colorado 235,935 1 99
Norton Kansas 212,833 2 99
Bon Homme South Dakota 206,492 3 99
Lincoln Arkansas 204,929 4 99
Buffalo South Dakota 204,383 5 99
Davidson Tennessee 80,276 469 85
Richland South Carolina 55,395 1439 54
York South Carolina 43,519 2098 33
Orange California 34,030 2523 19
Pierce Washington 25,823 2782 11

Our county percentiles over time

Deaths

Table showing total deaths per million and percentile for all US counties. Includes our counties and the top 5 in the US for perspective.
County State Deaths Per Million Raw Ranking Percentile
Gove Kansas 7,587 1 99
Jerauld South Dakota 7,452 2 99
Dickey North Dakota 6,568 3 99
Foster North Dakota 5,919 4 99
Gregory South Dakota 5,735 5 99
Richland South Carolina 755 1585 49
Davidson Tennessee 693 1725 45
York South Carolina 559 1983 36
Orange California 533 2046 34
Pierce Washington 324 2511 20

Our county percentiles over time

Raw counts

Total confirmed cases

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

New confirmed cases

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

Total deaths

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

New deaths

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

Stay-at-home comparisons